Separation of Church and State

And it finally happened.

I am so grateful to report that after much time, many failed attempts, yelling at my computer, yelling at the WordPress chat help, not literally, although I do think I told one of the people on the chat that I was as computer conversant as a tired four-year old.

I really felt like throwing a tantrum with that chat and I excused myself from it quickly when I realized I might, probably not, but might throw my computer on the floor and stomp on it.

So it is with much happiness and relief that I can report my website, my professional website, and my personal blog are no longer connected.

Oh.

They still are, but not really, not in a way that anyone could figure out and my friend who helped me even made the suggestion to change my face on the profile picture so I couldn’t be recognized that way.

Hence the new icon which is a graffiti photo I took many years ago in Paris.

Six years ago it feels like.

Paris was much on my mind today.

And in many of my conversations.

I went and saw my dear friend Barnaby at his new shop in Oakland, East Bay Tattoo, and he touched up the color on my pink jackalope bunny tattoo that he gave me for my 40th birthday when we were living as room mates in Paris.

We both marveled at how far we’d come since that time in Paris.

We were both trying to figure things out and neither one of us thought that we’d actually be moving back here.

Barnaby landed in Oakland and I in the Outer Sunset.

Six years later he’s the father of two boys and he and his partner own a house in Oakland and he just opened a new shop.

Six years later I’m a psychotherapist, not going to tell you my name though, oh no, I don’t want you finding my website from my personal blog (this baby is dark, no social media, no LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, nada), I’m also a PhD student and I own a car!

I mean.

I remember how I felt leaving Paris when we did, my heart-felt bruised, I felt defeated, broken, I had tried so damn hard to make it work and Paris was not having it.

Not having me.

Although she has welcomed me back with open arms and love every time that I have gone back since.

I feel like I have learned so much about myself from my time spent in Paris.

So my friend and I reminisced and talked about all the things we did there and the conversations and all the things that we have done in the time between and how life is.

You know.

Life is pretty damn good.

Even though.

Fuck my life.

I just found out that my paper is due at 5p.m. instead of midnight.

And!!!

Hahhahahahahahahaha.

God.

I must be a little on edge about getting my shit done by all the deadlines.

I forgot, tomorrow is Sunday, not Monday.

The paper is due Monday.

Of course I’ll be working and not really have time to address the paper, so I’ve been planning all along to have the work done by Sunday night and turn it in Sunday night after I get back from doing the deal up in the Castro.

Whew.

What a goofy little moment of panic.

I was all sorts of mad.

Heh.

Ah.

Breathing deeply again.

So.

I will hopefully be posting on a much more regular basis on my blog now that I don’t have any worry about potential clients finding out about it.

I mean.

Ahem.

My most “popular” blog is about cocaine and vodka enemas, not something I want any perspective client to be reading about.

I know how that sounds.

I never have and never will administer or be given a cocaine vodka enema, but I had a friend tell me a story once and I was so horrified by the idea, I’d never heard of it and I guess it’s actually a thing, that I wrote a blog about it many moons ago and what do you know.

It’s the most searched for tag that leads people to my blog.

I have actually thought about deleting it, but you know, it’s actually well written and it does in fact allude to recovery, so maybe someone out there who happens to stumble upon it might get the idea that they actually have a better shot at life without shooting cocaine up their bum mixed with vodka.

Anyway.

There are lots of other things in my blog I’d rather not have my therapy clients find out.

Like I’ve been to Burning Man eleven times.

(Dirty hippy)

(Sex addict)

(addict in general)

(weirdo)

I won’t say that any of those things don’t apply, but ahem, you know, I’m happy with who I am and not really shy about sharing.

God forbid a client read any of the blogs I wrote about my brief and tumultuous jaunt on Tinder.

God was that a heap of crap.

With one or two shining moments, but mostly a lot of yuck.

And now.

Well.

THANK YOU FRIEND!

I don’t have to worry about it.

I can write happily and freely about everything.

Well.

heh.

I don’t actually write about everything either, you know a girl has to have a few things kept back.

At least for right now.

There may well be a time and place when that changes, but right now, yeah, there are a few things that don’t wind up in these posts and that’s alright too.

I’m just so happy to have my little blog space back.

I don’t mind that it’s gone so dark, it’s like my own little private universe with a few select friends that like to hang out and have a cup of coffee with me and catch up.

I’ve got some followers who know me in my personal life as a real bona fide person, and I’m cool with that, but the rest of the world can keep right on thinking of me as Auntie Bubba.

I’m very.

Very.

Very.

Cool with that.

News!

Aside from the fact that I am super tired.

And.

Hello.

It’s Monday.

Bwahahahahaha.

Ugh.

It is what it is and I know once I’m in the groove of the week I will be just fine.

I usually am.

I just need to hit my stride and there was some extra work that I hustled into my schedule today aside from my work and going to meet with my supervisor, I also went to school to take care of some more paperwork.

My God.

The amount of stuff I have to get signed.

I know it’s a necessary evil, but man, there’s a lot of stuff to keep track of.

I had a moment when I was going to leave something in my scooter basket, just a cloth sack with a file folder in it.

Then.

I had this vision of someone breaking into my scooter basket and taking that file.

I was like.

Oh, no you don’t, motherfucker.

Not leaving any paperwork to be stolen.

Not that I think that anyone wants my BBS forms (Behavioral Board of Sciences) but they might break into the basket to see if there’s anything of value and rifle through shit and drop that in the piss and used rigs on Minna Street.

And just.

NO.

I spent too much time and effort getting just a couple of those forms filled out–one of them has four different signatures and also three different initialed spots, spots that are not my own signature.

I did not want to risk it at all.

Anyway.

I took it with, popped into the practicum office at school, had a really nice chat with the woman there and got some more paperwork and went to another floor of the school and got some more paperwork there, all the papers, and then scootered off to work with a big smile on my face.

I got some good news today.

I don’t have to stop writing my blog!

OH MY FUCKING GOD AM I HAPPY OR WHAT?!

I brought it up again with my supervisor and what the group of interns at my internship had suggested and while I was talking he gets on his phone and says after a minute, “don’t bother, you’re not coming up on any searches, you’re buried.”

And then.

“Take that with a grain of salt,” he continued, “you get a stalker client, and I’ve had my share, you’ll get someone who will find your stuff, but you are anonymous enough, I think you’re going to be fine as long as you don’t post your blog any longer to social media.”

So.

Hurray!

I am so very pleased.

But.

Yes.

I am going to be going off social media with my blog pretty damn quick.

My end date on it is this Wednesday.

I am not longer posting on Twitter.

In fact, I tried to deactivate it today, but it had me a bit flummoxed, man when you’re on the site they want to keep you there.

I did log out of it and I took it off my phone and I won’t be linking my blog to it any longer.

That is a start.

My supervisor also prescribed all the privacy actions that I have already taken with my Facecrack account and then told me to make sure that my LinkedIn account is not public.

Fact is.

I have no clue.

I set up a LinkedIn account over six years ago, maybe longer?

I have never used it.

I have no idea what it may say about me, but I need to clean it out and make sure it’s private and obviously update it.

A bit has changed in the last six, seven years, to say the least.

But.

I can do that.

I can keep writing this blog.

Oh.

I know.

A client might find it and my supervisor and I talked about that too and how that can be handled and how that can be brought into the therapy and I felt really good discussing it all with him.

He is a fantastic supervisor.

He scares me a little, he’s just that smart, but he’s good and I’m learning so much from him, I am beyond grateful we are working together.

So I was pretty happy to walk out of his office knowing that Auntie Bubba will ride again, not that she’d been stabled, but that I did think I was going to have to put her out to pasture.

I have gotten some amazing responses over the last couple of days from folks who want to continue getting the blog or some semblance there of and I am happy to report you, my dear reader, that you can still read the blog right here on WordPress.

I would suggest you either subscribe to my blog and get it e-mailed to you or you can, by signing into WordPress set up an account and become a follower.  I have about 11 people who get it e-mailed to them and 284 followers.

You’re welcome to become 285, or 286, or whatever the number may be.

I don’t have many followers, but I feel like I have rapport with many of them.

I feel honored that some folks have been reading from the very beginning and that many, most of the reader who follow me don’t even know who I am.

Which, hey, is how it’s supposed to be, right?

Especially now as I begin my therapeutic endeavors.

“You have your first client this week?!” A friend asked me tonight, “they are a super lucky person, they really are.”

I could tell my friend was sincere and in his warm face I felt all the love and strength and trust and faith in myself that I could ever hope to feel.

I am so lucky.

Blessed.

Graced.

You pick.

To get to do this kind of work.

And.

Really.

When I look back over my life, I have been in so many situations where I was privileged to hold a confidence, to listen to someone walking through pain, to be a shoulder, literally and figuratively, I have been prepping most of my life, it would seem.

Grateful for every damn thing that has brought me here.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

I absolutely believe that.

So much love.

So much gratitude.

Happy.

Joyous.

Motherfucking.

Free.

Don’t Stop Writing

I was told recently.

“I like reading what you write.”

God.

I love that.

Validation.

Although it’s not why I write and I am struggling with that.

Let go, I whisper to myself.

But.

It’s hard to let go of something that I have been in relationship with for seven years.

I have to shut down my blog.

I haven’t written the last few days and I can feel it in my bones.

Actually, that’s not true.

I have been writing, a lot.

Just not my blog.

I have been busy.

And the not writing I can take with a great big grain of salt because I was busy doing wonderful things and having life altering experiences.

Life is happening.

My God, is it ever.

I started my internship.

I take my first client next week.

I have read my client file, contacted said client and set up our first session.

I am navigating all the paper work and all the insurance stuff, more stuff, all the stuff, the policy papers and the keys, oh my God, the keys, I have a lot of keys right now.

Which is fine.

I jangle when I walk, but whatever.

Today I had my first group supervision training.

It was great, I learned a lot, it’s rather like being in a small classroom and getting to ask the teacher all the things, and I took some notes and got the questions I needed answered.

Most of my questions had to do with administrative stuff as I haven’t met with a client yet.

All the others in the group have been seeing clients and thus they brought up what they needed to have addressed.

It was great learning for me to just sit and listen and I did have some input and that was nice, I was able to see a few things and offer some different perspective and I was thanked for my experience and my insight.

Which I appreciated as well.

I also asked about my blog.

This blog.

My baby.

My love child.

My little place in the universe to pour out my heart and talk about all the stuff on my heart and in my mind, or to get out all the stuff in my mind so that I can listen to my heart better.

I have known, probably since I started school, that one day the blog was going to end.

But.

The writing doesn’t have to end.

And that was what my supervision group gave me today.

I got very affirmative feedback from everyone to take down the blog off social media and make it completely anonymous.

I have already pulled it from my Instagram account and I privatized that account so random folks can’t join it, I have to approve the follow request.

I have also dropped a few folks off the friends list on Facecrack.

I could probably winnow that out a little more as well.

It was recommended that I change my name on Facecrack.

I’m not sure to what, but I know a few people in my cohort have already started doing that.

It’s a damn good idea.

The next suggestion was to not link my blog to Facecrack.

It would eliminate a lot of my readers.

I mean.

A lot.

But.

It would provide me with more anonymity and it would also give my client room to see me as a therapist, not as some poet girl, Burning Man aficionado, single lady in the Outer Sunset riding around the city on a scooter.

Then.

Sigh.

Ugh.

It was suggested and I knew the moment I heard it that it was the next action to take.

That I stop writing this blog.

Double ugh.

I knew it in my gut, but I teared up.

I am tearing up now.

Fuck.

I know that because I have such big feelings that I am going to be a great therapist because I can empathize, but shit, sometimes it’s just a bitch being sensitive.

Granted, I wouldn’t wear it any other way, that is, my heart on my sleeve.

 

Gerber daisies in a Mason jar.

Dark pink stars on slippery green stalks opening toward the light.

Petals kissing.

And blushing soft.

Mouths like hungry little beasts blossoming into the warm air.

My heart.

Threaded with light.

Opening and beating against the back of my ribcage.

Tender under the bruised spaces on my breastplate.

This then.

Each moment timeless and gone only to be longed for again.

And again.

And again.

 

I digress.

But you get the point?

I like to express.

I like poetry.

I lie.

I love poetry.

I am a whore for it, like cello music and Clair de Lune and Brahms and Mozart and Chopin, I prostrate myself to it and hope, really I do hope, to gracefully surrender to whatever beauty is taking me at that moment with a kind of asunder that only perhaps is heard inside my soul.

But hear it I do.

And to renounce this forum feels terrifying and sad.

So sad, the richness of sweet lipped tears on the tops of my cheeks and the sudden catch of my breath in my throat.

Oh.

All the feelings I don’t want to feel.

But.

OH.

All the feelings I get to feel, I am so grateful and graced and loved.

Beloved.

I am.

And I am aware of my great fortune.

But.

This then, begins the end of my blog.

I have to let you know I won’t stop writing.

Nope.

I just won’t be writing here any longer.

I will have an end date on Auntie Bubba.

She has been such a good girl to me and shown me my strengths, and oh yes, my defects, those in spades, all things intimate and good and intense and wounded and sad and well, just all the things.

Yes.

All the lovely things.

This bearing witness to my own journey.

I am forever grateful for it.

So.

As this chapter closes.

As the Book of Bubba comes to an end.

I will admit.

That I am not finished.

That I am not written out.

That there are more words and worlds of words and galaxies and yes, a universe to still discover and write about.

There is a theory about the Big Bang and how the universe was created and when the universe will end and that it all came from one spot and explodes out and then shrinks back in on itself.

This is called the Big Bounce.

This is all very general and not very theoretically informed, mind you.

However.

It speaks to me and what I endeavor now to share with you.

I will be starting a new blog.

I am not done.

This blog is, however, just about done.

I will only publish a few more blogs here.

I am not quite ready to say good-bye yet.

But it is only days away.

I will start a new blog and I will continue my writing, my growth, my learning, my pushing my edges and finding out more and more who I am through this medium that speaks so much to me.

Writing.

I will not be connecting it to my Twitter account, in fact I am damn close to doing a deactivation on my Twitter account, I don’t feel like I use it all the often any way.

I will not be posting my blog on Facecrack.

I will not be making it known who I am.

I will be writing anonymously.

I haven’t a name yet.

Just a taste on my lips, like the last kiss at the end of the night, the push of tongue into my mouth and the startled stillness in my heart that precursor to the shaking tremble that befalls me and  tells me, yes, here, go here.

I will consider sharing with some of my readers my new blog.

But you will have to message me privately.

Which you may do by posting a comment.

I approve all comments before they are linked to my blog.

I will message you my new blog when it goes live.

Otherwise, seven years later, I will bid this space adieu.

They say that after seven years all the cells in your body turn over.

I know not what will be next.

I just know that there is a next.

And I thank you.

My readers.

Who ever you are, where ever you are, for humoring me and my poetry and my words and my tears and my heart ever beating upon my bloody damn sleeve.

With so much gratitude.

I thank you.

 

Today’s Stats

Sometimes I just don’t know what to make of my stats.

Not the body ones.

Or the emotional ones.

Even the mental ones.

Nope.

I literally mean the ones on my blog.

How come so many people are searching that one particular thing?

Why would someone in Mexico want to read my blog?

Who is creeping on my page?

Cuz.

That shit happens yo.

Sometimes I get a great big spike in reads and it’s typically, from my experience, one reader going deep into the blog.

It always leaves me curious.

Who is that person?

Or what are they looking for?

Do they just want to get to know me better, but just a little too shy to ask?

Are they just keeping up with the life and times of Auntie Bubba?

I mean.

Today was not super exciting, but it was special, as is any day I get through without picking up or using and as I was surprise popped to speak at the place tonight, it astounded me, once again, how much my life has changed and how very much I have to be grateful for.

Even when I don’t want to lighten up or have fun.

My life is light and fun.

That does not mean frothy or insubstantial.

If anything.

I believe that it is ever more expansive and open and wonderful.

Deep and complex.

Yet.

Utterly simple.

Easy?

No.

My life is not easy, but by following some simple suggestions.

Well.

Life is manageable and I can let go of the results and just see what happens.

So much can happen.

Least of all when I expect it.

I mean.

Shit.

I’m going to New Orleans on Thursday and three weeks ago that wasn’t even on my plate, let alone an idea in my head, let alone an actual reality, a plane ticket, a room to stay in, a place to meet my fellows, a French Quarter to explore.

I was talking to a dear friend of mine last night on the phone and she mentioned that she has always wanted to move there.

Me too.

It’s been one of those places always on my radar, even though I haven’t been back in so very long.

I made her a promise that I would report back and let her know how it was.

I suspect it will be fabulous.

I suspect I have no idea what will happen.

But it will be good.

I know this.

Having done enough traveling in my life at this point I know how to do a couple of things, pack, and navigate around and get in and out of an airport.

Those things used to cause me an unbearable amount of anxiety.

Just getting to the airport was excruciating and exciting and flavored with fraught anxiety and a curious longing for the uplift of the wings, the expanse of land below me, the clouds and sky alongside my face.

How often have I pressed my face against a window portal, dreaming dreams and aching with some unnamable feeling, some longing for shift in perspective and the glorious wonder of new things to be seen and experienced.

New faces.

New foods.

New streets to wander.

New art to see and be exposed to.

So much wonder in the travel.

The escape from the mundane, well, I don’t think my daily routine is mundane, I should re-word that, the exodus from the routine, to the new and the glad return, the gratitude I have when I land back at SFO and the chill fog coolness swirls about me and the doors open from the baggage claim gates to the outside world.

I am reminded of every time I have flown in and out of the airport.

Of the first trip here when I returned to the land of my birth.

To my last trip from New York.

All the Paris’s and Chicago’s and Minneapolis’s in between.

The Orlando trips, the Madison, Wisconsin trips, those times to Maine and back, Anchorage, Los Angeles, Austin, London, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Boston.

There are still so many places to go and visit.

But there is always home to return to.

And I normally do with a renewed vigor and love for where I am and what I am doing.

I do a lot.

Even when I am loathe to admit that.

I do a lot.

Just writing this blog.

I mean.

I forget that.

The work here.

The graduate school program.

The nannying.

The doing the deal and going to yoga and cooking all my own food (for the most part).

The showing up and be willing to take suggestions even when I want to blow a big raspberry at the person making it.

The willingness to be wrong.

The ability to make mistakes and not beat myself up for not being perfect.

The trying.

The dating.

The sex.

The life.

The love.

The music.

The words.

All the things.

I mean.

I am many, many things.

I am certainly not perfect and I am a pretty open book, although sometimes I can retire into silence and not know what to say to someone or I will lose my voice when I need to self-assert, I will second guess, and not trust my gut.

Or.

Worse.

I will hear that still small voice and ignore it.

There’s a big difference in not trusting your gut versus hearing something, knowing it’s not good for you, or that there’s a lot of information to look at and choosing to ignore it.

Hope for a different outcome.

And even these mistakes.

They are not really mistakes at all.

Just another foot fall on the path to where ever I am going.

To what ever destination God has in mind for me.

This week it happens to be New Orleans.

Who knows where I will go next?

I certainly don’t.

But.

I’m game and excited and over joyed with it.

The ability to do these things that were once such fantasies.

Sitting at the end of the bar at the end of the night rattling off tales of where I was going to go and things I was going to try and places I wanted to see and things I was going to accomplish.

Most of the time it was no further than the floor underneath the stool I toppled from.

Or.

Some strangers bed.

Most often, a miserable repeat of what had happened the night before and the night before that and so on ad nauseam.

There are things that repeat for me today.

Routines, roads I travel, steps I take.

But instead of them being a horrid Ground Hog’s day of terror.

The repetition breeds awareness and it deepens more and more with perspective and experience.

Revealing a steadfast love that takes care of me no matter what.

Always.

Always here.

Always there.

Everywhere I go.

This extraordinary gift.

This.

Overwhelming.

Overarching.

Expansive.

And.

Genuine.

Love.

 

Sometimes The Universe

Conspires in my favor.

I found out, in rapid succession, that both ladies I was scheduled to meet with, one on Friday evening after work and the other Saturday morning, have had to cancel

On top of which my person isn’t available either this weekend.

Oh.

Don’t you worry your pretty little head.

I still have plenty of shit to deal with.

But now I have a little flexibility in my step and I am very grateful for that.

I still have two ladies to conspire with on Sunday, I’ll be getting my deal in, but I will also be getting my homework on.

I have a project for my Human Development class that I must have the work done for by this Saturday so that I can confab with my partner on Sunday.

I was feeling a little bit of a squeeze when I received my partner’s e-mail this morning before work.

“I’m working as hard as I can,” I felt like yelling at the screen.

Not as though she would have heard.

I know everybody is doing it to the best of their abilities.

I am not the only one working hard.

But my timing is sometimes weirder than others and I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to address my partners questions until almost 10 p.m. tonight.

Which is exactly what I just did.

Despite my work hours being seven hours a day instead of 8, I feel like I am working double overtime.

I get up and read before school.

I write before school.

I do my morning routine.

I go to work.

I do the deal after work.

I come home and read.

I blog.

I might sneak in fifteen minutes of video or perhaps a conversation with a friend.

Then I do it all over again.

I will say this much.

The three years of graduate school are going to go fast.

Whiz.

Motherfucking.

Bang.

The days are full and the weekends are not times to relax.

They are time to do the work.

I will now have alot, for me, extra time to get my project dealt with, so my partner is not carrying the brunt of the work and I will also get caught up on all my reading.

I am almost there.

But.

I have miles to go before I am completely on par with the next weekend of classes.

I have one plan for Friday night after work, then all day Saturday to get it done.

I may let myself sleep in a little on Saturday though, roll around in bed, drift in and out, get all sexy in the sheets.

Once in a while a little extra sleep is a nice thing.

Especially when the Universe has given me the nod to do so.

I will also, fingers crossed, be celebrating my year review.

Although it was not discussed at work, there was no time in the day with the boys and the parents schedule, I do believe we will be having the conversation on Friday and I am good with it.

Good with whatever happens.

Good.

With it all.

“Carmen, I love you,” the smallest guy hollered to me as I went tumbling down the stairs to climb onto my bicycle and ride like a comet out to the Outer Sunset so that I could toss myself in the shower before my commitment tonight at the Sunset Youth Services on Judah and 44th.

I squeaked in a shower and it was so nice.

That’s what life feels like right now.

Squeaking in as much as I can wherever I can.

In fact.

I may just pause here for a moment and go throw a load of laundry in the wash.

Excuse me a sec, ok.

Nice.

Always a bonus to get something else taken care of.

Now to figure out how to get some groceries in the mix and I’ll be doing ok.

Busy.

I don’t know when I won’t be busy and sometimes that does make me feel a little overfull with all the things, but I am also gifted to have all the things, and it’s nice to know that there is a balance in there and I know it.

I’m grateful to be able to do all these things and that I get to live in San Francisco.

I mean.

Really.

I live and work and go to school in San Francisco.

I was checking in with a friend and we were discussing some of the fellows in my cohort and how many of these students commute in from all points, literally, from as far away as Miami, Fl, and how I am lucky that I live here in the city.

Granted.

I do bitch a tiny bit about the commute from the Outer Sunset, but it keeps me healthy, all that bike riding, and as a friend said recently when I expressed that I haven’t owned a car since I moved here in 2002 (13 year anniversary the beginning of this month!), I have no carbon footprint.

Although.

I may have offset the entire 13 years by the one joy ride in the 1972 Mach 1 Mustang that I got to ride around in on Sunday.

Damn that was fun.

I’ll take another please.

What else?

There isn’t much else.

There isn’t much time for much else, is there?

Or is there?

Life is always throwing me some sort of curve ball, just when I think I have a routine, or something figured out, I don’t have anything figured out at all.

It’s all topsy-turvy all the time.

I suppose I should be used to it by now and sometimes I actually am.

I feel like right now, despite my shaky start to the day, that I have some equilibrium.

I have love.

I have a home.

I have the setting moon.

I have a bicycle.

She’s smart ass whip and she’s all mine.

I have a strong, healthy body.

I actually have relationships with my family, not always close, but I have them.

I laughed out loud the other day catching a random post on facecrack from my oldest niece.

Which deserves a shout out here since she is the reason my blog is called “Auntie Bubba.”

I sent her a certain gift for her birthday that she had dropped a hint that she would like, so I went on Amazon and ordered it.

Then I promptly forgot, because, like yo’, I’m busy, duh.

I almost didn’t see the post either, but there it was and I laughed out loud, almost snorting coffee out my nose when I saw the photo of her holding the gift in front of her very happy face.

The caption read.

“Auntie Bubba is best Bubba!”

That may be the greatest compliment ever.

Busy.

Yup.

That’s me.

But squeezing in the love wherever I can.

The Universe conspires for me.

In case you were wondering.

I am the best Bubba after all.

Hello.

Minnehaha

Say it again.

Say it again.

I laughed as my best friend repeated the word.

She has a certain way with word.

It was so good to hear and so good to reconnect and to make jokes and know what she was referring to.

Not many folks know me so well or for so long.

It is a blessing to have her.

Plus.

Her boys.

Oh such boys.

And I miss my boys, who I cannot wait to see next Monday and be reunited with and hear their voices and get back into the thick of being a nanny.

Which also means getting back into the thick of preparing for Burning Man.

Sidebar.

My boss sent me a text asking me what I would like my job title to be, she threw out a few suggestions as well as asking if I was still going to be MFP.

Mary Fucking Poppins.

Yes.

That’s the name.

And my job title?

“Not your Nanny.”

I have been asked a few times to nanny others, not just other children either, but that’s another blog entirely.

I sent off a quick e-mail to my boss with a photograph and I will have a laminate for the event, as well as a leash (radio, which is why I need a playa name to be on communications with my family) at the event.

The Burning Man preparations will begin in earnest once I return.

But until then.

Back to the boys.

The tow headed trio of brothers that I got to sniff and kiss and hug and squeeze and tickle and hold and share stories with and oh.

Did my heart so good.

And the eldest now has me on his Instagram and yeah.

The love palpable.

I am not Auntie Bubba to them, that is my family moniker, I am Auntie Bubba for my nieces (“Auntie Bubba, what is your real name?” My eldest niece asked me when she was twelve.  “You know my name,” I said and smiled, pushing the bangs off her face and away from her rich hazel eyes.  “Carmen,” she said, with just that little uptick at the end that was more question than statement of fact. “But can I still call you Auntie Bubba?” Always my love, always.), rather I am Auntie Carmen.

Which is really quite wonderful and made me just swell with a sort of familial pride that I know is not exactly blood related, but some friends, well, they are more family than family and my friend has seen me through a lot.

To be considered an auntie for her brood is an honor indeed.

I just wish I was more capable in my body to run around with them and play and hold them and tumble about.

There will be more walking boot in my future than walking, while I am about the boys though, I realized quite quickly that I would be protected better if I continue to wear it.

Though I would love for that part of my story to be done, that walking boot is going to get a burial at sea if I have my way, I will be keeping it about for the duration of my visit.

And boy howdy am I grateful that I took everyone’s advice about the wheelchair.

First, SFO was packed this morning, long lines, folks leaving from Pride weekend, just a lot of folk up and about and checking in.

I went to the agent and I saw an elderly couple getting ushered inside via wheelchair and for a moment felt like a complete fraud, then the ticketing agent saw my foot, and radio, “bring another wheelchair out to the gate.”

“Have you checked in?” He asked.

I handed over my identification and he printed off my boarding pass, “go sit inside and they will come and get you and bring you right to the gate.”

That was exactly what happened.

By passed the line.

Sailed right on through, got my stuff through the x-ray machines, but I had to get a personal pat down from the security team, a woman, who was quick and thorough, plus having my palms swiped for chemicals and they swabbed the walking boot too.

After that, straight to the gate and right to the front of the line and the first person on the plane after the flight team boarded.

Nice.

I did not up grade to a different seat, the flight was booked, but I was able to rearrange myself and use the bathroom facilities before the rest of the plane boarded.

I was deep into my book before I even realized that the plane was boarded and heading out to the runway.

A quick flight.

A few videos.

A few chapters in my book.

A nap.

Then landing.

And upon exiting the plane, again, no need to ask, there was a member from the airplane company standing by with another wheelchair.

He waved me over and I got settled in.

I told him that they had decided to check my bag and I needed to go to baggage claim and right then and there you might as well have crowned me with my own princess tiara, I got to ride in the cart to the baggage pick up.

It was awesome.

I would have been way overwhelmed on my own.

The distance would have been really challenging and it took about five minutes in the cart to get there.

Walking it would have been twenty, even with the little conveyor belts scattered throughout the terminal.

I was able to get my bag, and sit for a little bit with a coffee and read another chapter in my book, then my friend got me and we just drove around Minneapolis, went through Uptown, Tangle Town, Hennepin, Grand Ave, and the nearby environs, drove around Harriet Lake, and even went to Minnehaha Falls.

Lunch at Sea Salt and dinner and coffee at Wise Acre.

Plus the best company on earth and then the return to Hudson, crossing the Mississippi and the St. Croix rivers to Wisconsin.

A tumble on the kitchen floor, lap full of boys eager to tell me about the homemade welcome cake they had made in the afternoon, hugs from the papa, after I disentangled from the three boys and then more hugs, tea with the boys, and they had cake, then story time on the couch.

My heart feels full and fat and heavy with love.

And it’s just day one here in Hudson.

I still get to have another four days.

Huzzah!

Happy Anniversary!

I just got a little love from WordPress.

Happy Anniversary!

You registered on WordPress.com 4 years ago!

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

Thanks guys!

I am pretty stoked that it’s been four years.

That’s a great big chunk of commitment to suit up and show up for.

Though, let me be honest, I started this blog four years ago, but it wasn’t until three years ago that I started posting once a day.

That post a day challenge that the site invited me to partake of really took off for me, changed who I am, how I think, what I do, and really, where I go.

I have been all over the map, East Oakland, Paris, San Francisco, Hudson and Madison, Wisconsin, Reno, Florida, LA for the first time, Burning Man, due in no small way to this blog and the work I have done here.

Some of those places I would have gotten to eventually, some of those places came about because I was writing things out, or working them out, letting myself see things I had not seen before.

I started the blog with a push from a friend who said, “you should start a blog.”

And I wanted to impress her, I thought she was cool, and I respected her opinion, so I started the blog.

I also started the blog with the intention that I was going to publish my book on it and then somehow or other get picked up or self publish elsewhere.

Obviously, if you follow this blog at all, which there are 232 of you who subscribe (thank you, by the by, I don’t know many of you, but I am thrilled that you find the writing worth sustaining, worth having sent to your inbox, worth the read) and a handful of you who read via Facebook or who follow via Twitter or Linkedin, you know, that I have not published that book.

I am not aggrieved by that.

When that book is supposed to be it will be and I forgive myself for it not happening yet.

It’s not on my time frame.

What is on my time frame, what I do have some “control” over is the showing up, the sitting down, opening up my laptop and going forth into the world with my words.

Words that I don’t think about much, except once in a while, something will strike me or I will hear something, see something, or be catapulted back into a memory.

I stopped worrying about what I was going to write about somewhere in between the second and third year of doing the blog.

I realized that I just had to sit down and the words would come.

I don’t get to be judgemental of those words either, they are not of me, they come from me, but they are not of me.

They have led me to relationships, sexual, intimate, relationships, they, these words, have led me to friendships unsuspecting, they have given me money when I did not even know I had friends who were reading and they sent me ducats when they were most needed.

The blog has allowed me to let out a voice I wasn’t even sure how to vocalize.

It has led me to see what I like and don’t like, it has allowed a forum for me to express all my idiocies and idiosyncracies.

I have explored sex, money, death, love, travel, friendships, jobs, emotions, bicycles, sleep, dreams, family.

So many things.

I have over and over again gotten to write about something that has bothered me to find a way out of it, whether it was through the constant repetition of a thematic or the things that just kept popping up finally be allowed the recognition of being let out.

I have been able to explore myself, to find out what lays beneath the layers of skin and tattoos, what thrums beneath the sinews and muscles, lies vibrant and live in the corpuscles of my heart.

I have been told things about myself that I did not even know I was doing.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” my friend said to me.

I do?

Hmm.

Yes, I do.

I wear it proudly now rather than shamefully.

I am a brave woman and I acknowledge that fact.

I have gotten to explore growing older, wiser, sexier for sure.

I have lost weight, gained weight, lost it again.

I have lost my mind, temporarily, and been honest about it.

I have tried Calling in the One.

Man, thanks for putting up with me while I was exploring that topic!

I have gotten to hear my words spoken back to me from the unlikeliest of mouths, received texts from people in other cities thanking me for what I wrote the night before.

I have had people text me late at night and ask me why my blog wasn’t up yet, they couldn’t go to bed without reading it.

Do you have any idea how amazing that is?

Thrilling to be read.

Stunning really.

I probably have a greater readership than writers years ago just simply from the gift of sitting here and pouring my heart out on the computer.

Sometimes it is a messy heart, a confused heart, a heart sloppy with emotion, often a stubborn heart.

Man, is it stubborn.

Sometimes a sad heart, a lonely heart, a laughing heart.

I laugh a lot.

Sometimes the heart sings and I throb with the meaning of my life and the unknowing that happens and the magic, the pure fucking magic of putting down, in and with as much honesty as I can, what I am feeling, and you tell me what I need to hear.

Even when there weren’t that many reading.

I somehow was given what I needed when I first put it out here, in this forum.

I have been gifted with so many things–physical gifts–tea and euros, lube, yes, lube (hahahaha, I still love that, my complaining blog about the crappy smell of the lube I found in a sex shop in the Marais when I was living in Paris led to someone sending me my favorite kind from Good Vibes), I have been told how I have been able to connect with people and literally to connect with them, in this physical plane; gifted too with the gifts of insight, so valuable, no price tag can I attach.

This blog has brought me tears.

I have cried.

I have cried.

I have fucking sobbed writing this blog sometimes, the pain it just burned.

But I got it out, here.

Here.

In this little square, this little white brick of space, that I then sent out into space.

Happy anniversary, Auntie Bubba’s blog, I have never had a relationship quite like this and I cannot imagine my life without you.

Here’s to four years.

Here’s to just the beginning.

Here’s to showing up for it.

Here’s to it just getting better and better.

And better.